


Still Enough To Count

by Nununununu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Character Development, Domestic, Don't copy to another site, Enemies to Lovers, Feelings Realization, Getting Together, Handcuffed Together, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Mystery, Realising You've Grown Up, Reunions, Slice of Life, magical mishaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24563008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: The arrival of a package bearing mysterious contents, a literal accidental bond and a rebellious old magical house result in an unintentional reunion taking a turn quite for the unexpected.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 124
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	Still Enough To Count

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Smittenwithdaydreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smittenwithdaydreams/gifts).



> AU canon divergent after the end of the books (EWE). Although Astoria isn't mentioned within the fic, there's no cheating involved.
> 
> (Originally posted 30/06; updated for author reveals)

“Oh no,” Harry said fervently. This bore repeating, with added embellishment for emphasis, “Oh hell no.”

Oh hell no indeed.

He hadn’t intended to trigger the spell. The speedy little swift Ginny had taken to using in place of an owl had dropped the small package down his chimney with a trill, her rolled-up attached scroll declaiming in a cheery scrawl, ‘ _Saw this on my adventures and thought of you!_ ’ Harry hadn’t even finished opening the packaging before the coiled chain inside abruptly glowed, unravelled and wriggled into life, and leaped out at him a split second later, attaching itself to his wrist in a flash of dazzling silver magic.

The counter spell he’d instinctively fired off had bounced completely ineffectually off the chain.

Ginny had no cause to seek to harm him, Harry was confident of that – suspected, in fact, that she hadn’t even realised it was spelled or, if she had, that it was anything beyond a harmless charm. Still, the thing was now fastened seamlessly around his wrist just above his hand, where a shirt cuff would cover it if he tugged at the sleeve. Ribbons of unrecognisable script decorated the unfamiliar metal, thinner than it ought to be given it had so far proved unbreakable; without any visible or invisible join he could find.

It wasn’t uncomfortable to wear or, rather, it _wouldn’t_ be, except for the fact that when that flash of silver light had faded, Harry had sensed even before his vision cleared that he was no longer alone.

He glared at the person who had appeared in front of him, shaped first by the silver light before solidifying into someone he had no wish to see.

Frowning petulantly, his brows drawn low over his eyes in a way that was probably intended to look stern and intimidating but instead just drew attention to the narrowness of his peaky face, Draco scowled back at him.

“Oh _hell_ no,” Harry said again, in case it made him feel better, which it didn’t really, although it did result in Draco’s eyes tightening even further into a squint.

“I assure you, Potter, I am as thrilled about this situation as you are,” The other man’s drawl would have been more effective had it not shaken fractionally, halfway through the sentence. Visibly grinding his teeth in annoyance at the situation but quite possibly also in response to this slip, Draco’s squint dropped to the silver band that had appeared on his own wrist, twin to the one on Harry’s, joined together by a short chain that was determined to reveal itself as equally unbreakable to the rest, although Harry wasn’t done seeking to change this status by a long shot.

He was distracted by Draco’s assertion now however.

“Nope,” Harry crossed his arms – or, that is, he would have done, had the shortness of the chain prevented him, threatening to tug Draco’s own arm towards him despite the other man’s hiss and immediate resistance. Giving up on this impulse, Harry jabbed an accusative finger at him instead, “ _Nope_ , you can’t say that; you can’t make out you have any idea exactly how _un_ -thrilled I am right now. This is my place; you are _not_ welcome here and just – no.”

Shaking himself as if he could shake off Draco’s presence by doing so, Harry ran a fresh few spells over the shining silver chains, ignoring the jolts of pain that resultantly shot up his arm and into his chest, pretending he didn’t see Draco wincing in the corner of his eye until he was unable to ignore it anymore and had to give up.

“Fuck.”

What was he going to tell Ginny? She’d promised to send him something while off on her travels, despite his protests – he’d sent her a care-package of her favourite biscuits and a few pairs of warm knitted socks after their last floo conversation in which she’d jubilantly regaled him with tales about exploring heather-filled moorland and flying out to sea with seals bobbing up out of the water in her wake, and although it hadn’t occurred to him to expect anything in return, she’d insisted on sending him something regardless and he had found himself looking forward to it.

It was good to be getting on so well with Ginny – they’d broken up a while after the war ended when they both realised they were better as friends rather than a couple, and it hadn’t taken more than a short period of awkwardness before the ease between them began to re-establish itself. A couple of years on now, Ginny felt very much like the sister of Harry’s heart, while Molly Weasley had informed him more than once that the whole family considered him an unofficial Wesley-Potter.

Buoyed by such thoughts, Harry barely even noticed the stinging pains still shooting up from the metal around his wrist towards his heart as he reached further into himself, drawing greater magic down to bear upon breaking the chain.

“Will you _stop_ doing that?” Harry belatedly realised Draco was demanding somewhere into his umpteenth increasingly complex unlocking spell, which Harry ignored.

“Shut up,” The backlash that would occur if he interrupted the magic halfway would be unpleasant for them both.

“You’re a drivelling idiot; what part of _unbreakable_ don’t you understand?” Draco seethed once the spell was done with just as little effect as all the rest.

He was clutching the hand that wasn’t chained in the stupidly expensive-looking robes over his chest in a manner that didn’t appear feigned, something waxen about his pinched features clueing Harry in to the fact that, as overdramatic and prone to exaggeration as he remembered Draco being at choice moments back during their school days, that had been no few years ago and, okay, what Harry had just put the pair of them through had potentially been a fair amount of pain for someone who wasn’t as used to shrugging it off as him.

“Shit – yeah, okay, I’ll stop,” he said, because while he might not _like_ Draco in any shape or form and admittedly had often itched to thump him when they were younger, that didn’t mean he had any desire to actually hurt the other man. He made himself continue, “Sorry.”

“Hmm,” Draco responded to this apology with the flintiest of looks in his arsenal, which Harry reckoned was probably intended to illustrate how immensely far he, Harry Potter, fell beneath the lofty heights obtained by the other man, but in his opinion mostly made Draco look like he was piqued about being served a cup of slightly over-brewed tea or something similarly mundane the vast majority of other people wouldn’t think twice about – or maybe that was just Harry.

“Did it – hurt badly?” he persisted stalwartly, given the other man was still clutching his chest like a damsel on the cover of the romance novels the local library displayed in a corner of its dusty windows, and a spasm crossed those pinched features, Draco whipping the hand down as if it had betrayed him.

“I’ll thank you not to concern yourself about that,” he said tartly, which –

“Fine, whatever,” Shrugging mentally, Harry gestured with his chin at the other man, “How do _you_ propose we get out of this, then?”

“I _propose_ you don’t continue firing off spells willy-nilly at this – this _thing_ ,” Draco’s vocabulary apparently suffered under duress, which made Harry’s mouth twitch – had it been anyone else saying ‘willy-nilly’ in Draco’s accent, he might have grinned. “While there are a number of potential avenues I intend to investigate before returning to important affairs I was in _the midst of conducting_ –”

“What, like investigating different types of hair pomade?” Harry couldn’t resist nodding at the brilliant shine of Draco’s locks, slicked into lifeless perfection over his head.

The tease felt surprisingly light-hearted given how much they had always disliked each other, something Harry’s tone reflected, but Draco gave him a waspish look all the same, mouth pursed as if someone had offered him one of Hagrid’s rock cakes to go with that oh so terrible tea.

“ _Nonetheless_ ,” he took a steadying breath in, as if dealing with Harry took every last dreg of his oh-so angelic patience – Harry rolled his eyes. “I have absolutely no intention of sharing the spells I will be utilising with you.”

He had a way of pronouncing this last word like it was a dagger aimed for the heart, but Harry had tired of Draco’s nonsense years ago and the attempt failed to impact.

“Good luck that then,” he gave the chain linking them a meaningful jangle, “You want me to, I don’t know, turn my back or something? Promise I won’t look?” He glanced at the clock Molly had gifted him up on the wall, “Get on with it, anyway; I’ve also got stuff I want to do.”

“I don’t even want to know what you were – purchasing here,” Draco’s upper lip crinkled, which just went to show he had apparently forgotten how much of the magical world made purchases given they were alone in the little shop.

“Just get on with it,” Harry refrained from pointing out he was, in fact, owner of the place, “Here, I’ll just –”

He cast about for something to distract himself with, presuming that Draco’s objection mostly arose due to the other man’s hankering for a sop to his pride. Ending up investigating and then setting to one side the entirely normal packaging the chain had arrived in, Harry otherwise didn’t make much of a pretence of not monitoring the spellwork that, after a pause, Draco grudgingly unbent enough to attempt once he’d resentfully accepted the concession – nothing particularly original, but a few spells with twists Harry wouldn’t admit he hadn’t thought of if asked, and a couple of intricately complex attempts to sever the spellwork connecting them at the end that had him reluctantly impressed.

“Useless, huh?” Harry couldn’t keep himself from commenting even so, when Draco finally sagged inside his showy robes and let out an aggrieved sigh.

“Useless,” He surprised Harry by agreeing, although the sourness of his tone was entirely predictable.

“Well,” Harry concluded, having had some time to accustom himself to what it looked like he was going to have to announce, as little as he might like it, “We’re stuck here like this then, for the time being.” Seeing Draco blanch to an even more sickly pallor than usual as if the other man simply couldn’t imagine a fate more dire prompted him to add bracingly, “Could be worse.”

“So _you_ say,” Draco sniped, which wasn’t one of his better repartees, busy conducting a slow half-circle, his thin brows rising as he took in the cramped but cheerful confines of Harry’s shop.

“What a repellent grotto,” was Draco’s summary, once he’d taken in the late afternoon sunshine filtering in through the slow kaleidoscope of colours patterning the charmed glass windows and the little crystal birds twinkling and chittering to each other as they hopped up on the exposed eaves above the shelves upon shelves of gadgets and gizmos and daydreams and might-have-beens all shrunken down small and stoppered up in glimmering glass bottles.

The polished wood of the counter was warm beneath Harry’s elbow, the old-fashioned cash register Muggle-produced but on its way towards grumpy semi-sentience from its time spent in a wizard establishment and always seeking to nip Harry’s fingers whenever he went to give a customer their change. One of his older broomsticks – used mostly for sweeping out dust bunnies – was propped next to the entrance door, which always stuck, and his mum and dad were waving joyfully down at him from the gorgeously crafted copy Hermione had created for him of the smaller, much treasured photograph kept safe in an intricately carved wooden frame in his cosy little bedroom upstairs.

In short, Harry was happy here, happier than he’d been anywhere in quite a long time, and Draco could go and dunk his head in the weed-filled pond out the grassy strip of back garden and spoil that annoyingly impeccable hairdo he’d probably spent a good chunk of time plus three or four potions on if he had a problem with that.

“Go fuck yourself, Malfoy,” Harry therefore lightly informed him, and had the pleasure of seeing Draco’s pallid cheeks flush with outrage. “You don’t see me coming to the Manor –” Like he’d want to, “And critiquing the décor, do you.”

Something passed across Draco’s face so swiftly Harry could only peer after it, before the other man’s expression was battened down hard.

“You’d never make it in through the wards,” was Draco’s comment, too acerbic to be laconic, and, apparently losing his wits along with his temper, snapped his unreasonably long, thin fingers in the attempt to override the spell on the chain and disapparate, and nearly fractured the both of them into multiple parts.

“You bloody moron, do you _want_ to splinch us?” Harry panted, when they were peeling themselves up off the wooden counter both had slumped against, his arms threatening to shake before he gave them a brief mental talking to.

“Oh, _I’m_ the moron, am I?” Draco was in danger of getting lip ache, it was curling so much with his sneer, “And who was it that got us in this predicament in the first place, pray tell?”

His wand had slid from the sleeve of his robes into his white-knuckled hand, pointing towards the floor. While Harry couldn’t bring himself to feel much alarm over its presence in the heat of the moment, had it twitched up even an inch or so, he’d have had no compunction over punching Draco in the mouth.

“Ugh, this is pointless,” Shoving his glasses up onto his forehead, Harry dragged his unchained hand over the lower his face, “Yes, I suppose I’m the one at fault between the two of us –”

“You _suppose_ ,” Draco interjected.

“Yeah yeah, mea culpa and all that,” Harry discovered that, however long the other man ended up attached to him, he couldn’t go ten minutes more without a cup of the strongest coffee he had in the rooms he lived in above the shop, “I need a drink; I wasn’t expecting to deal with all this at gone five on a Friday. I suppose you’ll have to come up with me.”

“You suppose,” Draco repeated, tone as offended as if he’d expected to receive a signed and sealed invitation on an embossed scroll, “I was under the impression I wasn’t welcome.”

Harry glowered at him a bit, even as he started heading across the shop floor to flip the sign over to ‘closed’ on the door, compelling the other man to walk alongside him or be pulled along in his wake, “You’re not.”

“How _wonderful_ of you to confirm it,” Draco griped, as if he hadn’t practically requested Harry do so, and one of the exposed ceiling beams above them cracked and fell on his head.

**

“Huh,” Harry flung a spell up to stop the beam just before impact, even as part of him wondered if a bump to the skull might improve the other man’s disposition.

Better not to find out.

“Hmph,” was the best Draco seemed capable of in place of saying ‘thank you’, as he stepped out neatly from under the beam and brushed off the sleeves of his robes in a fussy little gesture, while Harry stared at him for a second in disbelief and considered gritting his own teeth.

“You’re welcome,” Accepting he should have known better than to expect anything more, he levitated the beam back into place, firing a couple of stronger spells on it to ensure there wasn’t a repeat performance.

“You’ll excuse me if I mistrust your ability to avoid further mishaps –” Draco added a reinforcing spell of his own, as if Harry’s couldn’t be trusted.

“What?” Harry managed not to elbow him. Barely. He’d _saved_ Draco and the ass was talking like he’d engineered it, “What the hell are you talking about –”

“But you do have my gratitude,” Draco finished rather snippily, as if saying as much left a bad taste in his mouth, and found himself obliged to trot after Harry again, as Harry resumed heading upstairs.

The stairs – albeit a bit rickety, the bannister of the old two-storey building possessing an ever present wobble – had never tried to trip Harry before; they creaked and groaned sometimes, as did the corridors, as the place settled, but he’d never had them twitch beneath his feet and seek to send him tumbling.

“Ah –”

Forced to ascend nearly side by side or else risk arm ache, it swiftly became obvious to both of them the way Harry’s staircase treated Draco. It accepted Harry’s footfall, then shrugged the other man off – Draco catching himself quickly and giving the contraption a narrow-eyed look – before swiftly progressing onto simply attempting to buck him off.

“What the hell is going on?” Harry grabbed for the wobbling bannister, as it was either that or have Draco yank the both of them off balance, the other man’s third attempt to ascend seeing him more or less propelled back to the ground floor.

“This is ridiculous,” Draco’s expression had shut down further and further, until it was practically a nonentity except for the depth of the furrow between his brows and the ire alight in his eyes. He stabbed a finger in Harry’s direction, “It’s also your fault.”

“In what way is my house disliking you _my_ fault?” Harry spluttered.

“Because I’m _not invited_ ,” Draco spat, and the paintings affixed to the wall in the stairway all prised themselves free and took turns flinging themselves at his head.

Ducking, Harry was forced to assist him in grimly batting them away, bright pain shooting up the chain linking their hands until he grabbed Draco’s fingers to keep the other man from moving around so much, ignoring Draco’s scalded hiss.

“Run!” He suggested, already leaping up the heaving staircase, flattening a step with an unspoken spell when it threatened to turn into spear-like shards of broken wood beneath Draco’s feet.

“ _How is this helping?_ ” Draco sounded near beside himself, potentially due to the fact he was being forced to move far more quickly than he usually had a wont to do. He stumbled after Harry, clinging onto Harry’s hand when it became inevitably necessary, and Harry summoned his broom after a few rather intense seconds when the house seemed to take objection to him seeking to aid the other man.

“What. The. Fuck,” Harry panted, when they were lying crumpled on the corridor floor on the upstairs corridor, forced to be close by the chain linking them around both their wrists – and then had to dodge as the contents of his crockery cupboard span out through the living room door to pelt themselves at Draco. He smacked the first plate away, while Draco dodged the next, looking decidedly more frazzled than he had earlier, vivid splashes of colour burning high in his cheeks.

A teacup aimed at him nearly bludgeoned Harry instead, but Draco got there first unexpectedly, sending it whizzing off with a flick of his wand, where it smashed into shards against the wall.

“You’re invited; I _invite_ you; you’re _totally fucking welcome here_ ,” Harry got out, before the shards could decide to come to life and attack them.

“Shit, sorry,” Draco burst out at the exact same time, looking appalled at having broken a teacup of all things, and then caught himself, obviously not having intended to say that at all.

The old house shuddered right down to its foundations, batted dust from each and every curtain hanging, and gave every appeared of settling down with a sigh.

“Yeah, uh,” Harry unintentionally fumbled – Draco really looked quite human there for a moment, half-sitting, coughing with colour from exertion fresh in his cheeks and tousled hair, the collar of his robes askew. “It’s okay; it didn’t have, like, sentimental value or anything.”

“I – good,” Draco wet his lips briefly, still not quite back to his usual self, “Silly, really. I suppose one just gets used to everything being – unique and expensive and created just for the Family, and –” He shot a half-unwilling look at Harry, who got the impression that Draco didn’t really see him, and said a little slowly and even more unexpectedly, “My mother had a teacup left to her by her great-grandmother. She rarely drank from it and certainly never when my father might see; it was the one piece left over from an otherwise broken set and I couldn’t understand why she would bother to keep it. But then I smashed it accidentally, when I was young, and thought nothing of it, until I caught her looking at it one day – and realised she was sad.” He shook his head slightly, “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. It’s ridiculous. But even though the house elves had mended it flawlessly, it never seemed the same to my mother. And it had meant something to her, more than – what one might expect of a teacup. So.” He wet his lips again. “I can fix it for you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry managed, a bit taken aback – not just by the offer, but by the confession that had preceded it. He’d never heard Draco speak like that before.

All around them pieces of crockery were picking themselves back up quietly, plates rolling back through the living room to replace themselves in their cupboard, accompanied by bowls and cups. One of the latter – sibling to the broken one – paused next to Draco to nudge the side of his hand, and he glanced down at it, and raised an eyebrow in place of a sneer.

“Go on then,” was all he said, and the teacup went.

“Huh,” Harry concluded, and thought to look down at their wrists – they had been connected before by only a short piece of chain, but now it was noticeably longer; about half a metre. He raised his hand and, just because he could, poked Draco with it.

“ _Oi_ ,” Draco’s back shot up straight as he resonated immediate chilly offense, before noticing what had happened and sighing, free hand going up to pinch the bridge of his nose, “So it’s one of those.”

“A cooperation spell?” Harry had been wondering, “Looks like it could be.”

“Hm, or else –” Draco’s cool-eyed gaze drifted first to the staircase, which was giving off the impression of being as placid and unremarkable as a staircase could be, and then to what was visible of the living room, “Let’s see, shall we.”

Brushing off his robes, he stood, and Harry stood likewise, and together they went into the living room, without mishap. In fact –

Harry blinked.

Wasn’t it a bit – well. A bit more colourful, bizarrely, where Draco stood, like there was one of the day’s last sunbeams, angling directly on him. And then Harry saw that the curtains were shaking themselves out straighter, dust sweeping itself up from where it had fallen during the earlier upheaval, a shimmer going across the carpet as it saw itself clean. Nothing in the cosy room had been particularly dirty to begin with – he had done household tasks for the Dursleys’ since he was young, but was also of the inclination to keep his belongings relatively neat of his own accord – but after a few moments, everything seemed brighter and airier, and even more welcoming than usual somehow.

“How very civilised of you, Potter; I didn’t know you had it in you,” Draco commented, and Harry turned to retort hotly, except that he saw the other man’s lips twitch just minimally, and abruptly registered that, just possibly, it wasn’t entirely meant as a snub.

“It’s not me,” He swallowed his initial reaction, moderating it to “I suppose I – invited you, didn’t I.”

Not that he’d had much of a choice. But apparently it had meant something to the house, all the same, just as the lack of welcome had earlier.

“Yes,” Draco took a step ahead of him, and the chain between them flickered with spiralling silver light, “I _am_ welcome here, aren’t I.”

While his tone had a sardonic edge, it was more restrained than it could have been – perhaps in case the situation reverted and he found himself again under attack. Still, he was looking about the place in a different manner to the way he had previously, down in the shop. Just – _looking_ , rather than wincing and grimacing, as it were. Although –

“What is _that_ ,” Apparently the small fireplace with its trim red brick mantelpiece was enough to cause offence. Draco’s frown expanded to taken in the entire wall, “Why would you – wilfully punish the house like that?”

“Haven’t done anything to it; I _like_ this place,” Harry wasn’t about to let either Draco or the house stop him on his quest for coffee, “Kitchen. Caffeine. Now.”

Draco’s whole face shrivelled into a familiar look from their school days as he opened his mouth to say – something probably vile, but Harry caught the chain linking them in his hand to loop it around his fingers and frogmarch the other man towards the kettle, and –

“ _H-huh_ ,” The sensation that rocked through him was stunning, the exact opposite of pain, a feeling of – of _connection_ , like something in him was somehow inexorably linked with Draco and –

“ _Hah_ ,” Harry dropped the thing, refusing to let himself shiver, and found Draco staring at him with a sort of stunned expression, that hot colour back in his cheeks and curls of fair hair freed from the pomade to fall artlessly over his forehead.

Why, oh why, did he have to choose _now_ to realise Draco was good looking? Or – all right, not _realise_ it, he’d known it all along, but for all his carefully wrought denial to crack?

However Harry mentally backed away from the thought, the damage was done, his heart thumping harder than was precisely welcome in his chest. He couldn’t help but dart a sideways glance at the other man as they passed into the kitchen and found Draco swiftly looking away; surprised all over again when Draco proved himself capable of not only identifying a Muggle-style kettle, but glanced around the place for a tap.

“Water’s from the well out the back,” Harry indicated the door that led to the external steps down to the garden – the exit had been on the ground floor when he moved it in, but he hadn’t sought to revert the change when the house moved the door up to the kitchen, “Outhouse too.”

Filling the kettle from one of the bottles he kept in the pantry and refilled when needed before setting it on to heat, he waited with a feeling of grim almost anticipation for the inevitable explosion of horror at such rustic inconveniences. Really, Harry wouldn’t have found it unbelievable if the other man had never lowered himself to set foot in anything as prosaic as a kitchen before. But –

“This was a witch’s cottage originally, wasn’t it,” A tiny indent had inscribed itself between Draco’s brows, far more subtle than it had been earlier. He was eyeing the ancient hob; the tiles set into the wall. Various signs of different owners; homely touches added to the place over the years.

“Yeah,” Harry saw no reason not to answer, surprised as he was by the uncharacteristic interest, “Grew a second floor a hundred years ago or so, I think.”

“It’s got the potential to do a lot more than that,” Draco sounded almost like he was speaking to himself, but then he shook himself a bit and refocused, “Tea?”

It was a question, a request, rather than a demand, and he hadn’t mentioned the lack of house elves – not even to sneer at it – and although he seemed uncomfortable, it was nothing like it had been back downstairs.

The chain had lengthened again, giving Harry room to collect his favourite mug and, when he went to get a teacup for Draco, he found one had removed itself from the crockery cupboard and set itself out in readiness on the counter, possibly the one that had earlier brushed Draco’s hand.

Draco was smirking at it a bit, but his brows had also risen a few degrees. A saucer and plate rolled themselves down next to it and the teacup hopped up on top of the former, while daintily formed sugary cinnamon biscuits wove themselves into being on the latter.

“What,” Harry couldn’t help but remark – the house had so far only seen fit to keep him in a good supply of heat in winter however heavily it snowed. He shot a look around his kitchen just in case a treacle tart might happen to appear.

Where exactly had the biscuits come from? His pantry was decently stocked – he took care to never be in a position where he or anyone who visited him would go hungry – but aside from the ghost of the witch’s cat that lived in the garden and sometimes wandered into the shop to swing an intangible paw at the crystal birds, there were no other creatures present likely to offer up a meal.

“You _do_ recall I am ‘totally fucking welcome here’?” Draco smirked faintly, a reminder Harry felt would be more palatable with caffeine and so applied himself to setting the situation to rights – as opposed to setting the situation with the chain to rights, which he still fully intended to do, mostly by contacting Hermione at a time when she and Ron wouldn’t be feeding their children and then putting them to bed. Ginny was in a different time zone; he’d floo her to ask what she knew about the chain when doing so wouldn’t wake her up.

Somehow Harry found himself sitting in one of his armchairs by the fireplace Draco disliked so much, listening to the other man talk as sat in the chair’s twin and sipped his tea and casually doubled the number of biscuits so they could share. Draco spoke about alchemy and magic, and referred to their school days and even managed to mention a theory Hermione had come up a few years ago with without sneering – which he even went so far as to agree with, as it turned out.

Harry found he was leaning towards him, almost forgetting about the chain now puddled on the floor between them, it was so long, and thinking of how they’d both been so defensive when Draco first appeared in the shop – they’d both reverted to the way they’d treated each other at school, hadn’t they, as if no time had passed between then and now.

He grew more animated as Draco became the same, gesturing to the supposedly hideous fireplace, telling Harry about the original hearth he suspected lay behind the wall, complete with a potential bread oven.

“Of course the place is cobbled together,” he said, and it didn’t even sound overtly disparaging, “But that is what one expects, isn’t it, with such houses, and one could say it even adds character. Pull down the wall and get the original hearth back, and the place will thank you for it.”

The armchair softened and deepened around him, a plush footstool Harry had never seen before tucking itself neatly under the other man’s feet.

“Thank you,” Draco went so far as to say, and then carried on speaking – of rooms he suspected might be tucked away somewhere or passageways to parts of the house Harry hadn’t encountered yet, and Harry might have found himself offended by the presumption, but found himself caught up in the possibilities instead.

“You see, I always intended to be an Auror,” He found himself explaining almost despite himself when the armchairs had started nudging them towards the kitchen and they’d wandered into the other room to put together a meal – something the house aided by highlighting certain ingredients or swinging open the old-fashioned cupboard doors at key times, rather than simply producing the food itself. Harry realised he was patting the counter in appreciation, chuckling under his breath when his slippers slid out of his bedroom and onto his feet of their own accord, cushioning him from the old tile floor.

“Hm?” Rather than immediately judging, Draco gave him a ‘go on’ look even as he proved he – shockingly – already understood how to chop a carrot.

“Oh,” Harry had to gather back his scattered thoughts, realising his gaze had been trained on the exposed sliver of the other man’s wrist as Draco pushed up his sleeve, “It took Ginny and Hermione ganging up on me, and then Ron, but eventually I realised I – didn’t mind the thought of a bit of a break beforehand.”

It had seemed a completely bizarre notion at first. But he’d spent some time at the Burrow and some with other school friends, and then with other people he’d met over the years, and before he’d known it, he and Ginny had been realising they were good friends who didn’t feel any particular need to kiss each other – or anything else.

Thinking about kissing –

Catching himself eyeing Draco’s profile, Harry made himself concentrate on the cooking.

“So what happened with you, anyway?” He found himself asking almost companionably, as two wine glasses hopped out of a cupboard delicately onto the counter and Draco rummaged for a bottle from the small collection Harry kept reasonably well stocked, considered its label without pursing his mouth too much, and then produced a second one to set out alongside it that looked suspiciously as if it originated from the Manor.

“To accompany dessert,” was Draco’s aside on the second bottle, because apparently there was going to be pudding – Harry had to stop his head from swivelling in case of any hints, abruptly and intently curious – and then propped his hip against the counter.

Arms crossed, locks of pale hair still falling in the neatly sculpted lines of a face that wasn’t honestly ferrety at all, the chain floating in gentle loops around them almost like they were surrounded by shining silver web –

Harry wanted to kiss him and he wasn’t sure why even as he knew the answer to this precisely, and he didn’t know how long he’d felt this way except that it wasn’t a new impulse, no, not at all.

He’d just finally shucked off the younger self he’d reverted to when Draco had appeared in the shop, that was all.

“I grew up,” Draco belatedly answered Harry’s question, after some thought, and raised a shoulder in an elegant shrug, “Seeing you simply – made me revert to past behaviour, which it shouldn’t have done. You haven't – done badly downstairs with the shop, quaint as it is, and your house adores you, despite that awful fireplace over the hearth.” He shot a sideways look at Harry that, while somewhat awkward, seemed almost amused, “I still suspect you can be a galumphing idiot, don’t get me wrong. But it's not – bad to see you. Even so.”

“Heh,” Harry leaned in to nudge him with his elbow as a hot bright burst of – of something – went off in his chest, so welcome in contrast to the earlier pain when they’d tried undoing the spell on the chain, “Same. But don’t worry.” He found himself lingering instead of pulling back, “I still think you’re enough of a pillock to count.”

Somehow their chained hands ended up straying together on the counter while dinner cooked – their unchained hands, as well. And if the meal ended up almost overcooked and then they ate too much and had dessert anyway, and if they insulted each other almost as much as they began to compliment small things about each other that they had never quite dared to mention before –

It didn’t seem to matter that they’d only been reunited unintentionally and unwillingly since sometime after five pm that Friday afternoon, because somehow it almost felt as if they’d been heading towards this in one way another for much of their lives –

If the chain in fact started to detach itself quietly from their wrists at some point that evening, before Harry stepped in close and Draco raised his hands to accept him or perhaps the other way around, and they eventually stumbled together towards Harry’s bedroom –

Well, the old house certainly didn’t object, for one. The little ghost of the cat slipped in from the garden to curl up in front of the lingering heat of the hob and the crystal birds tucked their heads under their wings in the shop, the curtains pulling themselves closed over the windows while outside night descended and the chain fell free, unnoticed until the next morning, onto the floor.


End file.
